In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nine

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that electricity was in less than one percent of homes, and in these homes, lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Tenses + Parallelism

• Any elements linked by a conjunction (“and” in this sentence) must be parallel.
• “where” is only used to refer to a physical place.
• “being” is only to be used when it is part of a noun phrase or represents the passive continuous verb tense; the use of passive continuous must be justified in the context.
• The introduction of present participle ("verb+ing"- “having” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.
• Past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• Past perfect continuous tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had/have been") is used when a sentence contains two actions in past and one action is in greater past as well as continuous in nature; the helping verb "had been" is used with the action that is in the greater past and continuous in nature.

A: Correct. This answer choice correctly modifies “one percent of homes” with “where lighting...gas”, conveying the intended meaning – that electricity was in less than one percent of homes, and in these homes, lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas. Further, Option A forms a complete sentence; the object “lighting” is acted upon by the active verb “was...provided” to form an independent thought, leading to a complete sentence. Additionally, Option A correctly uses the simple past tense verbs “was” and “was…provided” to refer to events that concluded in the past. Moreover, Option A maintains parallelism between the clauses “electricity was in less than one percent of homes” and “where lighting...gas”. Besides, Option A is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

B:This answer choice leads to an incomplete sentence; the phrase “and lighting still provided mainly by candles or gas” lacks an active verb to act upon the subject “lighting”, as “provided” is a past participle rather than an active verb. Further, Option B fails to maintain parallelism between the clause “electricity was in less than one percent of homes” and the phrase “lighting still provided mainly by candles or gas”; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction (“and” in this sentence) must be parallel.

C: This answer choice incorrectly refers to "electricity" with "where"; please remember, "where" is only used to refer to physical places. Further, Option C incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb “had been to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is only used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past". Additionally, Option C uses the word “being”, rendering it awkward and needlessly wordy; please remember, “being” is only to be used when it is part of a noun phrase or represents the passive continuous verb tense; the use of passive continuous must be justified in the context.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “having lighting that was still...gas”; the use of the “comma + present participle (“verb+ing” – “having” in this sentence)” construction incorrectly implies that less than one percent of homes had electricity because, in these homes, lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas; the intended meaning is that less than one percent of homes had electricity, and in these homes, lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.; please remember, the introduction of the present participle ("verb+ing"- “having” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.

E: This answer choice incorrectly refers to "electricity" with "where"; please remember, "where" is only used to refer to physical places. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the past perfect continuous tense verb “had still been provided” to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past, and the past perfect continuous tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had/have been") is only used when a sentence contains two actions in past and one action is in greater past as well as continuous in nature; the helping verb "had been" is used with the action that is in the greater past and continuous in nature.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the concept of "Perfect Continuous Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the use of "Being" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

IMO A

(wrong past perfect construction)

The un-underlined portion of the sentence has "had" (.........banks had installed electric). Hence this sentence has to have the correct past perfect construction. had in the first activity means that the second activity has to have a simple past tese and only in A. do we see the simple past tense.

In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century,
importantpublic placessuch as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks
had installed electric lighting , but
electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where
lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

IC comma+but IC.

(A) electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still
(B) electricity was in less than one percent of homes and lighting still
>>verb missing in lighting and intended meaning is changed by separating electricity and lighting.
(C) there were less than one percent of homes with electricity, where lighting was still being
>> Note: "where" here points to homes not electricity so that's fine.
(D) there was less than one percent of homes that had electricity, having lighting that was still
>> incorrect use of -ing participle.
(E) less than one percent of homes had electricity, where lighting had still been

Between A and C:
Is the only issue with C is "being"? Request others to share the pointers...

E has two problems
1. where is modifying electricity when it should modify homes
2. every clause has perfect tense and hence does not maintain sequence of events.

In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century, important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting, but electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

(A) electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still
(B) electricity was in less than one percent of homes and lighting still
(C) there were less than one percent of homes with electricity, where lighting was still being
(D) there was less than one percent of homes that had electricity, having lighting that was still
(E) less than one percent of homes had electricity, where lighting had still been


Hi All, My only confusion is between A and C. A looks like passive construction and hence destroys the parallel construction of the sentence where the part before "but" is in active construction. Also, the part after "but" should preferably be an independent clause and hence a construction starting with "There" is better.

I think C is correct as, the part after "but" starts with "There" and looks like a complete independent clause, able making meaning of its own. Also, the modifier is not incorrectly placed as the part after "Where" is secondary modifier to "Homes" and doesn't require Touch Rule.

Somebody please respond to my explanation, as to where I am wrong. Thanks in advance for your valuable input.


I may be wrong, but its fine................ I am still learning

Hi Kaushik,

1) Usage of being is wrong in C. For details check out https://gmatclub.com/forum/correct-usage-of-being-123156.html

2) Here where is used as a relative pronoun so it should be immediately after homes[noun] rather than electricity[noun]
For details check out https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/645/01/

3)
important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting
electricity was in less than one percent of homes
there were less than one percent of homes with electricity

All three of the above sentences have subject and verb so they should be independent sentences.



Let me know if I am going wrong somewhere.

uuh..tough one!

A. electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still
where is suspicious, but will go with A.

B. electricity was in less than one percent of homes and lighting still
changes meaning
2 IC connected with only "and"

C. there were less than one percent of homes with electricity, where lighting was still being
there were - I don't like it, I can't explain it, but no!!!
was still being - passive voice is not necessary.

D. there was less than one percent of homes that had electricity, having lighting that was still
there was - again this! where there?
having lighting - with comma - modifies preceded clause - this is incorrect

E. less than one percent of homes had electricity, where lighting had still been
past perfect - not needed.

waiting for OE

hey daagh,

don't you think that A distorts the meaning a little bit?

In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century, important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting, but electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

"Where" implies that the electricity was available in less than one percent of homes where lighting was provided mainly by candles or gas. But, in homes where lighting was provided by anything else than just candles or gas, the percent of homes with electricity was maybe higher than one percent. So my point is, reading this sentence, it could mean two different things, don't you think?

Perhaps I am just overcomplicating again, but would be happy to hear your opinion. Hope you understand what I mean.

Thanks in advance,
Jay

You are splitting hairs and going away from Sentence Correction, I am afraid. What was the other alternative than candle and gas? There were no others than these two when electricity was introduced in homes. I don’t think one must go after every place where some alternative could have existed and find out its percentage. If we do that, when will we complete this question on the D-day?

Secondly, granting that A is not good enough, which is your preferred choice that you can justify?

In option D
but there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity , having lighting that was still provided mainly by candles or gas.
In the independent clause that follows but , i read that there is subject-verb agreement issue - "Since we are talking about plural noun “homes”, we need to have “there were” rather than “there was”. It is correct to say “there was water” (water is uncountable), but it is not correct to say “there was cars” (cars is plural)."

Is the subject homes or 1 percent of homes ( homes is in prepositional phrase and can it be the subject ? )

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , mikemcgarry , egmat , sayantanc2k, DmitryFarber , MagooshExpert , chetan2u , daagh , other experts- please help

Hi Skywalker18!

Happy to help

This is a little hard to think about because option D is wrong in several ways. So let's focus on your real question -- if we say "1 percent of homes", should that take a singular or a plural noun?

Your analysis is absolutely correct here -- "homes" is countable, so "1 percent of homes" should be plural. That means that the correct verb would be "were", not "was". The subject here is "1 percent", and "of homes" is a prepositional phrase, as you said. A percentage can be either plural or singular, depending on whether the noun it's referring to is countable or not. So here, since "homes", the noun that it's referring to, is countable, "1 percent" is plural

Hope that helps!
-Carolyn

Hi egmat

I chose E even though I understand that ",where" is wrong as it should modify a place. However, I have some doubts:

1. Why is the usage of past perfect in "had installed electric lighting" correct? Which event is it taking in reference as a later event in order use the past perfect tense? Is it "at the end of the nineteenth century"? If so, how is this correct when the installation happened at the end of the nineteenth century? Meaning, the installation and "end of nineteenth century" happened at the same time.

2. If "banks had installed electric lighting" is correct and uses the past perfect tense, then why shoud'nt "where lighting had still been" (in option E) use the same as both these events occured at the same time and presumably before "at the end of the nineteenth century"

3. Doesnt "electricity was in less than one percent of homes" (option A)sound awkward? Doesnt it sound like electircity is being personified?

Hello aviejay,

Thank you for the PM.

Here are my explanations for your well-articulated queries.




See, it is not that important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks all installed electricity at the end of 19th century. These places individually must have installed electricity when they could.

The sentence basically wants to say that at the end of 19th century important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had already started using electricity. So the later event is basically the 19th century coming to its end. Hence, usage of had installed in Choice A is correct.




If the sentence says that lighting had been provided mainly by candle or gas, the usage will suggest that candle or gas was the main source of lighting only till the end of 19th century. After that, they it not used as the source of lighting.

But the sentence just wants to say the opposite. Even after the end of 19th century, majority of homes continued to use candle or gas as the main source of lighting.

Many homes used candle or gas even during the end of 19th century and most likely after that time also. Hence, we need simple past tense verb to denote this general information in the past.




I am not sure why you say so. Don't we say, say after a power outage, that power is back. We all know what kind of entity electricity is.

And again, GMAT SC is not at all about "sounds awkward". It is all about logic that determines the grammar of the sentence.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

(A) electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still

(B) electricity was in less than one percent of homes and lighting still

(C) there had been less than 1 percent of homes with electricity, where lighting was still being

(D) there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity, having lighting that was still

(E) less than one percent of homes had electricity, where lighting had still been


"Where" should modify "homes". C and E are out.

C is using "had been" again.

D is passive, and has SV error also (homes -was)

B is comparing "electricity" (noun) with "lighting" (Present participle")


Hence A is correct.

Even after reading all replies, i don't understand why being is wrong in choice C. I assume it is an event in continuity and written in passive voice. Can some expert kindly clarify.

Sent from my XT1033 using GMAT Club Forum mobile app

Hi Deepak, the crux of sentence, in option C is:

at the end of the nineteenth century, there had been less than 1 percent of homes with electricity

So, option C uses past perfect tense (had been). This is an incorrect usage. Past perfect tense is used to establish a time-sequence between two events that happened one after the other. In this sentence, end of the nineteenth century and electricity did not occur one after the other.

When the sentence is talking about an event that happened at a specific time (in this case end of the nineteenth century), we should be using simple past tense.

For example, one would say:

In 2010, I was in the final year of Engineering.

Following would be incorrect:

In 2010, I had been in the final year of Engineering.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Past perfect tense, its application and examples in significant detail. If someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Can some one tell me why Option D is wrong. IMO, I don't see anything wrong with D.